


makeout kings

by brophigenia



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Dating, Joseph Kavinsky Lives, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, Neck Kissing, Polyamorous Character, Prokopenko (Raven Cycle) Lives, References to Canon-Typical Violence, Slightly - Freeform, Smooching, Sneaking Around, Twin Peaks References, all the kissing, brief gun mention, just like, like in the background you can tell that some things are different because of the fact that, minor references to recreational drug uses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 18:30:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21020312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brophigenia/pseuds/brophigenia
Summary: Matthew Lynch, like his older brothers, had a weakness for three things: fast cars, bad decisions, and adrenaline.(AKA, Joseph Kavinsky didn’t sign up forromancewhen he kidnapped Matthew Lynch, but somehow it happened anyway. Or, six times Matthew and Kavinsky smooched.)





	makeout kings

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so MIF (my Mystery Internet Friend) told me that they wanted to see 6K of Matthew and K smooching. This isn't quite 6K, but I hope they're satisfied with it anyway! <3

_ how sweet it was, _

_ to want something _

_ pretend you didn’t _

_ and it get it anyway _

***

**[0.01 // you and i were fireworks] **

“You’re just a kid, huh?” Kavinsky mumbled, rubbing restlessly at his bloodshot eyes with his scraped knuckles. The gun was tucked into the front of his waistband, glinting dangerously even in the low lighting. “Just a kid.” He repeated, sounding a thousand years old and _ exhausted, _ though if he claimed to be any older than sixteen Matthew would vociferously call _ bullshit. _

The rope binding his wrists behind his back chafed. He was nauseous from the blindfold and the stumbling around and the scent of stale pot smoke and vomit that hung around Kavinsky like a cloud of teenage disillusionment. 

“What the hell do you want from my brother?” The question was trembling as it left Matthew’s mouth, but he wasn’t too scared to say it, even with Kavinsky’s gun at his eye level and his body crammed uncomfortably into Kavinsky’s trunk. 

Kavinsky licked restlessly at his dry lips and scrubbed a hand through his hair, which looked like it needed a good wash. Actually, _ all _of Kavinsky looked like it needed a good wash. 

“What the fuck _ don’t _ I want from your brother?” K asked him back, rhetorical and almost _ reasonable. _ Like Ronan’s _ muchness _was tearing him apart. Matthew could sympathize; Declan was easy to understand, straightforward even though he lied with every breath. Ronan was (and always had been) an enigma of a thing, always held a couple feet apart even when he was affectionately ruffling Matthew’s hair. Sometimes he missed Ronan so badly it made his chest go tight and achy, for the protection and validation he felt all over when Ronan was with him, smiling at him. 

“This isn’t the way to get anything good from Ronan.” Matthew pointed out, and squirmed a little to try and relieve the pressure his bindings put on his shoulders. 

Kavinsky seemed to shake himself, then, and he bared his teeth in an unhappy grin. “I _ tried _ playing nice, Baby Bear. It’s your brother’s fault this had to happen.” 

Matthew tried picturing it— Ronan and Kavinsky. Kavinsky playing _ nice. _Trying to get at Ronan through… what? Presents and compliments? It was an impossible picture. Ronan was not the kind of person who would stand still for sweet talk. 

He tried opening his mouth again to point this out but was cut off by Kavinsky’s lips pressing against his own, dry and harsh. No tongue, but the barest suggestion of it as Kavinsky licked over his top lip while he pulled away. “Don’t worry, kid.” Kavinsky told him, as he went to slam the trunk’s lid again. “Your brother’s gonna come get you.” Once the trunk was closed, he patted it twice. 

And then Matthew was alone in the dark, the heat. Waiting for his brother. 

It wasn’t as frightening as it might’ve been, for someone whose brother _ wasn’t _ Ronan Lynch. Matthew knew Ronan would come for him. It was only a matter of _ when. _

***

**[0.02 // not gonna waste these words about a girl]**

Kavinsky returned to school in September after a month-long stint in rehab. His return was not, as Matthew expected, heralded by a full-scale bacchanalia of drugs, liquor, and premarital sex in the woods that would make any and all of his former substance parties look like a kid’s birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. Instead, Kavinsky appeared a little rounder in the cheeks and no longer tried to trip people in the courtyards for fun. His pack still followed him around in a loose (but evidently-decided) formation, but they didn’t skip class to do donuts in the parking lot behind the health complex anymore. 

He was still Joseph Kavinsky, though, and something about the way he sat with his knees far apart and his elbows resting on them still thrilled Matthew to the marrow. It was the worst during Chem II, which Kavinsky had failed last year and therefore had to retake with the underclassmen if he wanted to graduate. To the shock of the entire administration, Kavinsky did not light a fire on his first day of lab but instead showed up and sat in the front and actually _ took notes. _

It was odd. Like Kavinsky had left some dark part of himself out in the woods that night alongside the corpse of his dreamt up dragon to rot and decay, starving without a host to feed upon. 

Matthew sat in the back alongside his roommate, Chazzy, who spent every single class period snapchatting townie girls beneath the table. Their labs always turned out _ okay, _ if not _ outstanding. _

Kavinsky’s lab partner was an easily-cowed sophomore named Golliher who seemed content to sit as far away from Kavinsky and the Bunsen burner as physically possible, leaving the mixing and stirring to Kavinsky, who had a knack for it. 

When he bothered to think about it, Matthew wondered if the whole thing was Kavinsky’s covert attempts at recreating _ Breaking Bad. _

It was an amusing kind of thought, but not one he dwelled on with any sort of regularity. He mostly just eyed Kavinsky’s collarbones, exposed by his half-unbuttoned oxford, and remembered that kiss on the Fourth of July. 

Midterms week arrived on the wings of a vicious stomach virus running rampant through all of Aglionby, Chazzy being down with a combination of it and a major hangover from their Dead Week team rager in Effervescence. Golliher was another victim, which left Matthew and Kavinsky without partners for their midterm, a performance-based lab experiment. 

It should’ve been awkward but wasn’t; Matthew knew he’d catch hell from both his brothers about it later, especially Ronan, who mumbled darkly whenever Kavinsky’s name was mentioned even in passing. 

“Pass me the hydrochloric acid.” Kavinsky directed him, eyes laser-focused on their bubbling Erlenmeyer flask behind a pair of safety goggles whose strap kept slipping against the shaved back of his skull. Matthew narrowly resisted making a fumbling joke about acid and handed it to him, though Kavinsky shot him a wordless half-smirk as if he’d heard him, anyway. With a little meat on his bones and the circles beneath his eyes less _ psychotic insomniac _ and more _ normal teenage boy, _the effect was enough to make Matthew half-hard in his uniform trousers. 

The rest of the experiment passed without incident, and Professor Gottschlieb gave them an approving thumbs-up when he came around with his clipboard to assess their finished product, peering and sniffing at the vibrantly purple (and not exploded or smoking) solution they’d assembled. 

“Hey.” Kavinsky said, as they packed their things and headed out the door among their peers, a crowd of raven boys with half-zipped backpacks slung recklessly over shoulders and cell phones being pulled eagerly out of pockets. The back of Matthew’s neck was prickling and hot; he was still half-hard in his pants. “You wanna go get some Nino’s?” 

For a moment, Matthew imagined it; showing up in Kavinsky’s sweet new ride, cherry-red like a virgin’s blush where his last had been white as a blanched corpse. Sitting across from him, eating a pizza, _ knowing _that when they got back in the car it would be on. 

He _ also _ imagined Blue’s unimpressed eyebrow arch and _ both _ of his brothers appearing improbably-fast to kick first Kavinsky’s ass and then his own. Then he’d be shipped straight off to Catholic school, probably somewhere cold and remote and _ far, far away. _

“Maybe next time.” Matthew said with a flash of an apologetic grin that made Kavinsky blink. “Cross country practice.” 

Kavinsky’s dark brows furrowed. His head cocked. He seemed to weigh his options. Then one of his hands shot out like a pale viper and clasped Matthew by the half-undone tie, tugging him close. “Yeah, okay, Little Lynch.” He breathed, starting to grin, starting to _ lean away _ as if he was going to leave Matthew unkissed and _ wanting _after all that. 

Matthew gave his own grin, sharper than the last, and surged forward fast to press a kiss to Kavinsky’s teeth, more a taunt than a promise, but hot, still. “Next time.” He promised, and then whirled so he could jog off toward the field house, half-late already. 

Kavinsky’s mouth had tasted like cinnamon gum and something else, something harder to name but thrilling. Like getting away with something you knew you shouldn’t. 

Matthew couldn’t stop grinning all the way through practice, even when Coach Van Der Woodsen had them weighted up and running laps. 

** _good game lil lynch xx _ **a text from an unknown number flashed on the screen of his cell phone, once practice was over and Matthew was redressing in the locker room. 

** _yea ur rite _ **he texted back, laughing, bumping shoulders with his teammates as they walked back towards the dining hall. 

***

**[0.03 // married to the money, i ain’t never letting go] **

The party was warm and close and somehow not overwhelming, though Matthew had been clapped on the back no less than thirty times by guys he only vaguely recalled from the second string of some team, or from this classical literature class, or that Latin language course. The parking lot of Monmouth Manufacturing was chock full of recent graduates, underclassmen, and townies. Here and there, Matthew spotted some of the looser-dispositioned professors and other assorted adults mingling with the crowd. 

Kavinsky was nowhere to be found, though a few of his boys roamed restlessly over the concrete, eyes glinting like stars under the strings of fairy lights that Blue and Gansey had spent the better part of the morning putting up. Jiang in particular was never long out of sight, slinking around with a red solo cup of soda in hand and pretending not to be exchanging sly looks with Declan, who sat in a ratty lawn chair by the punch bowl as if it were a throne and altar, both. 

“Matty!” Ronan said, right in his ear, and grabbed Matthew firmly by the nape of his neck, shaking him fondly. It was like the shining light of God fell upon him, like the Lord smiled upon them both whenever Ronan was within arms’ reach. Matthew knew the reason for this but kept it tucked beneath his tongue always like a secret and instead smiled at his next-eldest brother, leaning back into Ronan’s grip. “Matty.” Ronan repeated, all seriousness and gravity, but didn’t say anything more. He didn’t have to. Matthew heard it. He understood. 

“Get me a beer?” He asked Ronan hopefully, expecting the bark of amused laughter and the way Ronan dragged him close to knuckle at his scalp before he was shoved merrily away so Ronan could skulk off in the direction of Adam and Gansey, caught up in conversation with some old guy in a tweed jacket and his inattentive dog. 

“Something you might wanna come see.” Skov said, grinning wide and white, passing him on Swan’s heels and looking like trouble was his middle name. 

Matthew didn’t even pretend he wasn’t going to follow. 

Around the other side of Monmouth K’s new Mitsubishi was idling, purring and waiting to be filled up by the long-legged interlopers sworn to K like soldiers in some secret war. 

“Hey, baby,” K called from his open window, all sleaze and no charm, but it made Matthew laugh anyway. He went onto his tiptoes as he leaned off the curb, bracing his forearms on the windowsill. 

“Hey, K.” He replied, low and easy. Prokopenko slipped into the passenger seat and gave him a dark look, fingers tangling up in the diamond tennis chain K wore over his plain black tee shirt. He’d looked downright respectable walking across the stage at graduation earlier, hair combed and smile approaching something in the vicinity of _ sweet. _

“Matty, Matty, Matty. You gotta come visit me in Philly.” K ordered with a grin, baring a frankly ridiculous golden grill on his bottom row of teeth. Prokopenko’s hand went from toying at K’s chain to toying with his belt, and he moved in closer to press toothsome nips to K’s jawline, whispering beguilingly in husky Russian into K’s ear. 

K’s hand tightened visibly on the gearshift, and his eyes went darker. He ran his tongue showily over the grill and sucked his teeth, a put-on gesture as ludicrous as it was _ hot. _Matthew was molten inside, wanting at once to be far away and also to be in Prokopenko’s place in the driver’s seat. Even the backseat with Swan and Skov and Jiang would’ve been better than the pavement, leaning like a twenty-dollar callboy through Kavinsky’s rolled-down window. 

“You got a job up there?” Matthew asked, because he wanted to hear K’s dismissively mean laugh and also because he genuinely couldn’t imagine K in college, though he knew it was as essential for a Kavinsky as Declan insisted it was for a Lynch. A way to lend legitimacy to a family name that reeked of new money and dirty connections. 

K didn’t disappoint, his laugh every bit as cruel as Matthew had hoped for. “As _ if, _ baby Lynch. UPenn all the way.” The most debauched of all the Ivy League schools. Matthew was not surprised, and knew it showed on his face for the way K winked. “Now give us a kiss.” It was obnoxiously said, but Matthew really was beyond caring when he came further through the window to kiss K, enjoying the tugging as K wound a hand through his curls, enjoying how his hand overlapped with Prokopenko’s when he braced it against K’s stomach for balance, enjoying the quiet hoots and encouragements from the rest of the pack in the backseat. The whole thing was seedy and hot and exhibitionary, and Matthew was on fire with it. 

K dragged him back with the grip on his hair and studied him for a long moment, smiling a little gentler when Matthew tried swaying back in for another go. “Go back to your brothers, angel.” He said, like _ goodbye. _

“I’ll see you soon.” Matthew retorted, and was left on the dark sidewalk as they roared off, a cacophony of laughter and Russian trap music and squealing tires. 

_ “That’s _not gonna work out well.” Adam Parrish commented under his breath when Matthew passed him on his way back into the heart of the party, passing Matthew an unopened bottle of Bud Lite whose label was peeling off from all the condensation. It was a gritty, uncomfortable feeling against his palm. He felt like he was flying apart, quivering inside. 

Ronan swooped in upon him then, sorrowful about something he wouldn’t mention and trying to make up for it. Trying to pretend like he and Declan weren’t fighting about future plans. Trying to seem like their mother wasn’t freshly, officially _ dead. _

(Like she hadn’t been _ not alive _to begin with.) 

Matthew put it out of his mind, shut away into a box, and let himself enjoy the way Ronan slung an arm around his shoulders and held him close to his side the way he had when they were children. 

“To the conquering graduates!” Gansey exclaimed, holding up a plastic cup and standing on a makeshift dais made of a few wine crates. 

“The graduates!” The rest of them exclaimed, raising their own drinks in salute, even Ronan, whose Aglionby diploma was never going to materialize no matter how much money Declan threw at Headmaster Child. 

***

**[0.04 // i move on like a greyhound bus] **

The car that Declan bought him for his seventeenth birthday was gratifyingly _ fast, _if not the sexiest thing Matthew had ever laid his eyes on. It was the kind of car a kid like him should love, zippy and bright blue with enough room in the back to hold his pads and sticks and the various detritus of his schoolboy life, bottles of Addy and English books thick enough to concuss someone even as thick-skulled as Matthew, himself. 

It was a good car, and Ronan sent him a little dancing penguin in a grass skirt for the dashboard with a hastily-scrawled note from Arizona. _ Happy birthday, Matty. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. _It was the first time he’d heard from Ronan directly in months— he’d apparently thrown his phone into the Grand Canyon in a move both aggressively and pointlessly symbolic sometime in March. Adam and Jordan sent periodic text messages to assure both left-behind Lynch brothers of his continued grasp on life, Adam’s blunt and to-the-point while Jordan’s were full of dry witticisms and pictures of Ronan and Chainsaw sleeping in the backseat of the SUV. 

It was a good car, but it was not the stuff that Matthew’s dreams were made out of, darkened roads and rising speedometers and streetlight-stained skin. Nothing like his father’s now-totaled BMW, Gansey’s Camaro, or Kavinsky’s (also-totaled) moon-pale knife-adorned Mitsubishi. 

Kavinsky looked laughably incongruous leaned up against Matthew’s car, was the point, waiting for him after soccer practice with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth and a pair of reflective shades on. He looked like every cliched bad boy in every cliched romcom that Matthew had ever taken a girl to go see, but Matthew couldn’t stop himself from grinning at the sight of him, jogging the last few steps so he could throw his arms around K’s neck and plant one on him, narrowly avoiding the cigarette that K hastily plucked from between his own lips. He inhaled the smoke from K’s lungs with only a bit of a cough, his head going thick with it, and grinned when he thought about the fact that there was nobody around to snitch to his brothers about this. He was just another guy with an older ‘boyfriend’ to tote around, and fuck anybody who had a problem with it. 

“Happy birthday, sweet sixteen.” K sneered against his mouth, purposefully nasty the way that made Matthew groan, and then laughed. “Seventeen. Whatever.” It made Matthew laugh, still covered in sweat from practice and pulling back to shiver a bit as he registered the cool air against all the places he was damp. December in Virginia was nothing to scoff at, and he’d not hit the bottom to remote start and heat up the car as he came down the hill from the field. 

“You still wearing your jockstrap?” K leered, walking around to get into the passenger seat and taking up space with the way he sprawled his thighs out carelessly. 

Matthew couldn’t stop laughing, joyful to his bones. A great practice and now _ this, _ K in Henrietta when there was no one else to see but _ Matthew. _ He’d never been _ jealous _ of Ronan, exactly, but it was still a pleasant feeling to know that K had driven in to see _ him, _and nobody else. 

K’s hand curled over his thigh as he drove, and Matthew’s cheeks ached from how hard he was trying not to beam. “Wanna get some Huddle House?” He asked, peering sidelong at K, thumbing out a text and then fiddling with the stereo system, flipping through the CD changer until he stopped on Trey Songz, scoffing but not commenting. 

“Hell no. Let’s go.” K snickered. “You got any shit better than _ this?” _ He gestured vulgarly at the stereo. 

Matthew rolled his eyes and merged, liking the look of K in his passenger seat. 

Maybe the car would grow on him. 

***

**[0.05 // boys, boys, boys, we like boys in cars] **

Prokopenko huffed in clear disdain as soon as he opened the door and laid eyes on Matthew, looking like he’d been sucking on a whole bag of lemons. 

“K!” Proko bellowed, grudgingly backing up to let Matthew squeeze through the gap he left. “Company!” 

The walls of the apartment were the same as they’d been the last time Matthew had visited, plastered in stolen gig posters and glossy prints of half-naked men and women draped over various sports cars. The kitchen was surprisingly clean, except for the overflowing recycling bins. Someone had written a whole host of passive aggressive post-it notes and left them plastered to the blue and green plastic. _ TAKE ME OUT. YOU DISGUST ME. I NEED TO BE RECYCLED. GODDAMMIT K TAKE OUT THE FUCKING RECYCLING. _

He found K shirtless and laying sprawled in the floor of his bedroom atop a yoga mat, one arm thrown over his eyes and one knee bent. Matthew prodded him with the toe of his left sneaker until he uncovered his eyes. 

“Hey.” K said, and curled a hand around Matthew’s ankle beneath the hem of his sweatpants. His gaze was appreciative as it raked over Matthew’s frame, from the carelessly messy way he’d bundled his golden curls into a knot at the base of his neck to the way the gray fleece emphasized the bulge of his dick. It was the kind of look that always made the tips of Matthew’s ears go red. 

He wasted no time in kneeling down, throwing a leg over K’s hips and leaning down to cage K’s slimmer body with his own. “You into yoga now?” He breathed, running the tip of his nose along the ridge of K’s knife-sharp jaw. It made K shiver, his hands curving around Matthew’s ass almost by reflex. 

He could hear Proko rattling around pointedly and pettily in the vicinity of the living room and it only made him laugh, imagining the other Dream pouting and sulking. Imagining K soothing him long after Matthew was gone, petting through his hair and sucking messily at his cock. It was something that made him feel warm all over, imagining the way K touched Prokopenko. 

“Supposed to help me be more…” K arched beneath him and groaned out the last word, practically purring. _ “Zen.” _He bucked like he wanted to try and roll them over, but Matthew held firm, using his superior height and weight to keep K beneath him. Even that made K shiver, oversensitive and hedonistic. It was one of the reasons Matthew had never had trouble grasping K’s need for so many partners— he was so full of need, it made sense that it would take more than one pair of hands to staunch the onslaught. 

Matthew kissed him, long and sloppy-wet the way he liked it best, soft-lipped and pliant-tongued. Mimicking the rhythm of the rolls of their hips together with his nips and pecks. Every time they kissed it just felt better, until it got to be so routine that Matthew wasn’t even afraid of people finding out, anymore. 

It just felt _ good, _ to be in the circle of K’s arms. To put out the fire of K’s fury and restlessness with his touches, smothering down the screaming with each stroke of his hands over where K shook hardest. 

It was _ good, _ and _ bright, _and Matthew never wanted it to end. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket, though, too-soon, the alarm he’d set before he’d even knocked insistent and aggravating. He pulled back from K’s lips with a groan, unable to help himself from rubbing over them with his thumb, admiring how bruised and swollen they looked. K was heavy-lidded and certainly more _ zen _than he’d appeared when Matthew interrupted his ill-fated yoga session, as smug as the cat who’d gotten the cream. 

“I gotta go.” Matthew said, more to himself than to K, who gave him a look that was pure demon, pure pre-redemption. Pure _ Kavinsky, _ almost-audibly asking _ you sure about that? _ Matthew swore good-naturedly and ducked down for another long swig of a kiss, fortifying but worsening his want. “I _ gotta _go.” He repeated when he pulled back, and scrambled clumsily to his feet, readjusting himself in his sweatpants and making a bit of a show over it for K’s heavy-lidded amusement. 

It was 300 miles back to Henrietta, and he had a Physics II test in nine hours. 

“Bye, Prokes!” He called as he passed the living room where Proko was aggressively vacuuming beneath the couch cushions. He resembled a Muppet with his bony frame and his hair flying around and his aggressive huffing. 

“Fucking _ Lynches.” _Proko muttered, loud enough for him to hear even over the whirr of the vacuum. It was mostly just rote by now, though, and Matthew didn’t take the words to heart. 

Leaving Philadelphia got harder each time he did it, but Matthew was a Lynch. 

Leaving was in his blood. 

***

**[0.06 // soon you’re gonna leave, so leave us one more weekend] **

Graduation loomed over the coming weekend like a stormcloud. Matthew was hunkered down in preparation, pretending that it wasn’t happening by staying wrapped up in a blanket burrito and streaming season one of _ Twin Peaks _for the millionth time. He didn’t understand it any better than he had on viewing numbers one through nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, but something about Kyle MacLachlan’s voice had always soothed him into a comfortable lull. 

His roommate kept bringing him bags of Cool Ranch Doritos and bottles of blue Powerade like offerings to some sad elder god, leaving them on his nightstand as he went to and fro parties and gatherings and bonfires, finals week mostly-over and all their peers buzzing with it. 

Matthew was buzzing, too, but in a way that spelled more _ DANGER DANGER DANGER _ than _ FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM. _ He’d done well at Aglionby— he was _ good _ at studying and making friends and partying and working out. 

The future loomed like a craggy, wintry mountain that he had no hope of climbing. Matthew buried himself further into his blankets and ate more Doritos, dreaming in fits and starts of red rooms and the floral scent of Laura Palmer’s hair. 

**_yo bby _**his phone vibrated on Friday morning, at eight twenty-seven AM. Too-early for K to be awake, especially on a Friday when he didn’t have class, but there it was anyway. **_matt matt matty_** the next text read, and his phone kept going off until finally Matthew grabbed it, texting back an emoji of a skull, a squid, and a doughnut. 

** _kinky_ ** K texted back, and then ** _yo let me n _ **

** _??? _ **Matthew replied, but rolled out of bed and didn’t bother to put on a shirt, snatching up his keycard and going down the hall in all his messy-haired Dorito-fingered glory to let K in where he was leaning obnoxiously up against the glass at the front door. 

“Whoa, you look like shit.” K commented, eyebrows going up over the top of his douchey sunglasses. Matthew flipped him off and then turned to walk back to his dorm room, feeling uneven and full of dread, of darkness. Feeling too-Ronan, which he knew made _ sense, _but it only made him miss his brother more, as if he were missing a limb. The tether between them was stretched too-far and too-thin, and all Matthew wanted was to go back to the Barns and find everything waiting there the way it was once, fields full of life and the house full of Lynches. 

Now his home was this place, was Henrietta and this dorm room, and Matthew was tired and wired and _ scared. _He was the golden boy, the sunshine Lynch, pure light to balance out his brothers and their restless darkness. That was what he’d been created to be. 

It became harder with each passing year, though, to stay afloat. 

“Hey.” K said from behind him once they got back into the room and Matthew was unable to decide whether he wanted to stand or crawl back beneath his covers and watch Audrey Horne lay adoring, soft hands on Agent Cooper’s thin cheeks. Before he could make a decision, K stepped up and wrapped his arms around Matthew’s bare middle, hooking his chin over Matthew’s shoulders. “Hey, hey, Dreamboy.” He breathed, hot breath fanning over the skin of Matthew’s throat, and everything in him seemed to go lax all at once. 

It wasn’t the same as being close to Ronan, who was his brother and his Dreamer, but something in his chest settled down at Kavinsky’s touch even as the rest of him stood to attention. 

Matthew sighed and leaned all his weight back against K, who took it solidly. He pressed a kiss to the nape of Matthew’s neck. 

“It’ll be okay, little Lynch.” K murmured. “You’re gonna kick some ass out there.” 

Matthew huffed a laugh, both disbelieving and weary, but took the encouragement as it was intended and curled his hands around K’s wrists companionably, standing beneath the air conditioning vent and letting himself be held. 

***

_ you’re my wish— _

_ when i touch myself, _

_ i am conjuring you. _

**Author's Note:**

> follow me @ brophigenia.tumblr.com


End file.
